Oroks

The Oroks are the native inhabitants of eastern and southern Sakhalin island, Russia. The Oroks originated from the lands around the Amgun River in Khabarovsk Krai, and they had migrated to Sakhalin by the 1600s. From 1858 to 1860, the Russian Empire gained control of the Orok lands, and Sakhalin was a penal colony for criminals and political dissidents from 1857 to 1906. Following the Russo-Japanese War, southern Sakhalin was conquered by Japan, and they were not considered to be Japanese nationals; hence, they were not evacuated to Japan after the Soviet Union took over the island in 1945 during World War II. Those who served in the Imperial Japanese Army and became forced labors in the USSR were sent to Japan, with many of them settling in Hokkaido. In 2014, 295 Oroks lived in Russia and 20 in Japan.